Journey: A Personal Odyssey

FOREWORD

Titles are important. Very important." That's what my ex-husband Neil Simon always told me. Michael Korda and Chuck Adams, my editors at Simon & Schuster, said the same thing. These three men are extremely successful at what they do, so if they feel a title is important, it must be important. I tried to think of one before I even started writing this journey . . . this memoir. At first I thought it was important that the title of the book be catchy, the way some play titles are. For example:There's a Playwright in My Soup, I've Been Down So Long It Doesn't Look That Bad to Me, orI've Been Down So Long It's Starting to Look Up to Me, orI've Been Down So Long LowIs Looking Up to Me. What aboutI Got My Act Together but It's Too Heavy to Take on The Road? OrMy Arm's Too Short to Box with a Divorce Attorney orLong Day's Journey into Santa Fe ? How aboutSame Time Next Century orThere's a Playwright in My Suite ?

Then it occurred to me that the title of this memoir might be a takeoff on one of Neil's titles:The Odd Person orLast of the Red Hot Divorces orBarebreasted in the Park orRetirement Bound; Sunshine Girl orPrisoner of Bellagio Road; Mason Suite: A Life in Three Acts; Chapter Three: Last and Final. Ah! I have it:The Goodbye Girl Does Santa Fe !

Hmmm. After some thought and conversations with friends it was decided I should take into consideration the foreign sales of the book:Marsha of the Spirits (Italy);A Tale of Two Marshas (England);Lower Expectations (England again);The Madness of Queen Marsha (England still again);Looking through the Glass Lightly (Sweden);Marsha's Ashes ( Ireland).

Hmmmmm. After some more conversation and thought, the potential of a movie sale was discussed (what hubris, but I was beginning to feel a bit desperate):Dial M for Mason; I'll Cry Tomorrow, Laugh the Next Day: Cry, Laugh, Cry, Etc. orI'll Scream Tomorrow; Journey to the Center of Marsha; The Bride Came Federal Express; An Affair to Forget; Crimes and Bad Demeanors; Being There (But Not Knowing It); Gone With the Breeze; Playwright Spotting; Lady in the Dark, with a Flashlight; Love Is a Many Splendid Settlement, which led me mindlessly to think of song tie-ins: Me and My Many Shadows or Me and My Voices; The Way We Weren't; What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Divorce?; "I Like You Just the Way YouWere"; I Concentrate on Me; The Sound of Static; or Fly Me to the Moon, One Way.

But what about the New York intelligentsia? I queried my manager and friend Mr. Michael Black, who then suggested:Marsha's Ashes (again) orMason's Complaint; Withering Heights; A Woman of Dependent Means; Brunch with Your Agent in the Garden of Good and Evil. I particularly liked that one.Marsha of Sunnybrook Farm; A Life More Ordinary; From Here to Internally; The Lady Thinksthe Blues; orRestless Spirits.

Michael, not one to mince words, asked, By the way, how many ‘voices’ are there? Oh, nine or so . . . I think. I didn't count.

Well, he drawled, "how 'boutA Majority of Nine orAround the World on 80 Couches by Marsha Mason, a tip-off to the book? OrGive Me Librium or Give Me Meth ?

But what about the Self-help market? I wondered out loud, changing the subject, slightly. MaybeHow to Be Your Own Best Friend and Find Out You Don't Like You orGetting to Know Your Inner Child and Realizing You Can't Stand Her. Playwrights Are from Mars, Actresses Are from Venus? Michael countered.

You're O.K. but I'm . . . (the F word) orI'm O.K. but . . . No, that won't do at all. Out of desperation I consideredSee the Foreword andTitles Are Important.

I decided to start writing without a title. After completing my first draft some three years later, I sent it to Michael Korda and Chuck Adams with a tentative title,That Was Then, This Is Now. Only This Is Now wasn't now at all (now was now three years old), so I then suggested justThat Was Then and waited.

Michael sent me his notes with suggestions and cuts almost immediately.

"Explain, with an introduction of some kind, how the book is structured as a journey, so the reader understands, otherwise it's going to be confusing. By the way, I likeJourney as the title."

Aha! The title.Journey. Now to the more knotty problem, the book.

INTRODUCTION: THE CAST OF INTERIOR CHARACTERS

Before trying to explain the structure of this journey I think I should explain that I didn't take it alone. There were real people and animals involved and other people, interior people who exist only in my mind. My interior friends are selves, or aspects of my personality. They have very strong personalities with strong opinions and seem quite independent of me, even to me, as you will see. I'd like to introduce:

G.A.: My guardian angel, hence her name, G.A. She's full of pizazz. Smart, fast talking, stylish in a forties kind of way. When she first appeared some ten years ago she wore a tailored maroon suit, nipped at the waist; shoulder pads; narrow skirt; and to top it all off a jaunty hat perched rakishly on her pretty head. Think Rosalind Russell inHis Girl Friday and you've got the picture.

The Collapser: Her name's Gloria. Not a bad gal but not a winner. She whines a lot. Doesn't like making the effort. Always complaining about something. Cute but dumb. Well meaning but not someone you want in the trenches comes the revolution. Think Gloria Grahame in any of her B movies.

The Pusher: His name, Chuck Moses. Great guy but can be very irritating. Booming voice that sounds as if he travels with his own echo chamber. He feels responsible for getting the job done. Any job. Think Charlton Heston inThe Ten Commandments; hence his name, Chuck Moses.

The Critic: No name, not even a face. But a voice and attitude that can kill, literally. Sometimes it's a woman's voice, sometimes a man. Always hard, berating, sarcastic, demeaning, shrill, abusive. Take your pick. A real nightmare.

The Sisters Eccentric: Two distinct voices with separate personalities. Sometimes they appear separately, sometimes together. Think Billie Burke as the good witch Glinda inThe Wizard of Oz and Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham in the originalGreat Expectations.

The Inner Child: In my case, inner children. Anna and Ed. Anna's around six and Ed's nine going on twenty. Ed showed up a couple of years ago when I was doing a play in New York. I met Anna formally in 1974. I've been in touch with my inner kids practically all my life. Most creative people are, I think, in one form or another.

The Patriarch: On good days he's a great guy. Soft, wise, caring, protective, smart. On bad days he's controlling, demanding, withholding, and very tough. Sometimes he looks like Andy Hardy's dad in those Mickey Rooney pictures. Sometimes he looks and sounds like Edward Arnold inMeet John Doe and sometimes like Lionel Barrymore as the wealthy villain Mr. Potter inIt's a Wonderful Life.

The Warrior: My favorite fella. He's a relatively recent addition to the family, brought to life one afternoon walking on the beach in Malibu. He was a real manifestation. I saw him out of the corner of my eye. Think Daniel Day-Lewis as the intrepid last of the Mohican scouts and you get the picture.

Mr. Olympus: Every gal should be in touch with this gentleman. He's my strictly business self. A smart man with a head on his shoulders who understands what it takes to be truly successful in business. If only I'd met him sooner.

The Rebel: She's got blue hair, rings in every orifice, including her tongue; wears black and thinks of herself as a misunderstood artist. Abused, a loner; loves racing, motorcycles, cars, and misunderstood men. She's in her early twenties going on sixty. But cute, definitely cute.

Sister Mary: She's a nun. More accurately, a novice. She loves being a nun. So much so she's willing to become a monk!

Grace: Ahhhh, Grace. She's a voice. A soft, understanding presence without judgment but filled with discrimination, compassion, commitment, who holds that service to one's fellowman and all sentient beings is our true and ultimate role in life. She is who I want to be all the time. I sometimes think of her as my divine blue pillow.

I hope you enjoy meeting everyone (real and interior) as they pop up along the way. Now, if you're not already confused, I'll try to explain the structure I chose for my story, my real and personal journey.

My story begins with leaving. Moving from Los Angeles, California, and driving to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the summer of 1993, a journey of considerable physical distance, defined by the time taken to make it—two days, and the following four days that it took to get my life unpacked and put into a new place, a new time, the beginning of another life. During the course of those six days I went back a much longer distance and time, all the way back to my beginnings in St. Louis, Missouri, some fifty years ago. . . .

CHAPTER ONE

Hitting the Wall

It's June 26, 1993. The day is fading and so am I. Twilight is coming on, Magic Hour, they call it in movie jargon. My favorite time. On this seemingly ordinary California summer evening all is quiet on Turquesa Lane in the Pacific Palisades of West Los Angeles. Standing in the street, a cul-de-sac really, everything appears to be normal, but of course that isn't true at all. Everything is far from normal. I'm packing up my entire life and moving it far from here.

Artwork has been carefully crated and loaded into a temperature-controlled compartment right behind the driver's cab of a very large and very long semi with all my plants squished in there too. Twenty years of a California life packed up in just two days, and the moving men needed a second truck. Finally, just an hour or so ago, the semi and its slightly smaller brother trundled up Turquesa Lane and disappeared from view, already on the road, attempting to beat the torturous high noon heat of the Arizona desert, with the final destination Santa Fe, New Mexico. Everything that screamed chaos for days is packed up and gone. Now, tonight, there is nothing, not a single detail to let anyone know that I'm leaving. I decided not to say good-bye to my neighbors because I'd cry and feel some kind of hellacious pain. I have to spare myself so that everything gets done, this monumental move and everything it symbolizes. Get everything done, without feeling: that's been my mantra these days—one of them anyway.

Don't let yourself feel. Mustn't feel, commands my inner Critic. She's been on her high horse during these days, functioning in survival mode. So have all my internal voices, my other selves. There are a lot of them. There's G.A., my guardian angel; there's the Collapser, Gloria, named after the actress Gloria Grahame. There's the Pusher, who I've named Chuck Moses. There's lots of others. Every one of them up in arms. Well, why not? This is major change. I listen to my inner Critic tonight. I pay attention. I obey. Of course, I'm full of feeling, almost overrun with a torrent of feelings, but I can't let go right now. Can't unleash. There's too much to do.

The sky is a dusky blue with orange rays fanning a cloudless evening sky. The full, stately Ponderosa pines stand breathlessly still. The birds are silent. The family of deer has daintily made its way back down the hill, gracefully jumping the low back fence, seeking shelter and sleep under those stalwart pines behind the house. God, just thinking of the deer makes my throat constrict. Animals and parades always do that to me—any parade, all animals, especially the ugly ones. I've never been able to figure out why. Some weird kind of identification I have with them, I guess. Go figure. I swallow hard to push the emotions back down, clear my head of the image of a whole family of deer gingerly appearing in the backyard a couple of years ago from far down the steep hill, nibbling here and there, then resting in the late afternoon on the grass, the bigger deer standing guard over the little ones, always alert and cautious. They remind me of a leaded glass scene on an old Russian chandelier that hung over my grandmother's dining table. I wonder if they'll miss me, even know I've gone, and gone for good.

Don't think about that, comes the silent warning.

Taking a last look around, everything appears spotlessly normal and eerily quiet. No one would know I ever lived here, I muse, standing outside the front of my house, a home I built from plans that were serendipitously dropped into my lap some five years before. I take a last look at my beautiful house. A proper home for me alone, I used to say. This search for home has been going on for a long time, almost ten years now.

Hell, longer than that! This interior voice is another personality, the cute but irritating wiseass who whines at times, and who reminds me of Gloria Grahame. She always sashayed when she acted, I thought. I don't feel much like sashaying tonight though, as I gaze at my house and the neighborhood around me for the last time, knowing I mustn't hesitate too long for fear of cracking into a million pieces, fragmented forever with no hope of pulling myself back together. I mustn't give in to this swirling emotion roiling in the pit of my stomach. I'm leaving my past and consequently my identity behind, scurrying off to a new, unknown place, like an animal with its tail between its legs, head drooping. Hopefully, in a few days, weeks, whatever, I'll feel that I've found a new home and a new existence, a completely different life that makes sense and brings some kind of sustained peace and enjoyment.

"Lord, girl! You've never really experiencedthat, sustained peace! You're a woman who's known divine discontent most of her life." Right you are, G.A. Well, no, that's not totally true. There weresome years when my life and career felt good, hopeful, and satisfying.

G.A. is with me most of the time now. She makes me smile. Of course, there have been moments, and years, of happiness. Besides, what does that mean exactly, divine discontent? But tonight I'm wired; I'm impatient.

Divine in that you've always been a seeker, lookin' for the answers. So simple really, G.A. chides, a seeker of answers to those plaguing questions, ‘Why am I here?’ ‘What is my mission, my true vocation in life?’ G.A. is right, as usual.

My father, James Jimbo Joseph Mason of St. Louis, Missouri, used to belittle my philosophical questions. When I'd press him for an answer—Any answer!—he'd tell me I was stupid to ask such a question. What does it matter? Who cares! he'd snarl or dismiss it altogether getting up to make another drink. I didn't generally ask my mother because when I was a young girl I was sure she wouldn't answer directly anyway. Go get your dinner, honey. Your Dad and I are relaxing. I didn't understand until later that she was probably trying to smooth things out. I guess I learned that from her, smoothing things out.

When I was much older and a wee bit wiser, I came to understand that my father was a deeply unhappy man who felt that life was against him, that he didn't have a real chance at happiness. He felt his parents hadn't loved him, especially his mother. He was sure she preferred my Uncle Murray, Dad's younger brother. I was eight years old when I first noticed my grandmother's bias. Later I asked my mother if this was true and she told me, Yes. Nina's a funny bird.

I remember her vaguely, Nina. Her given name was Grace. I don't remember why my sister and I called her Nina. I do remember her dyed hair and powdered skin; and her pretty, manicured nails on slender fingers that shook as she smoked; and her wobbly voice, like someone invisible was always shaking her when she spoke. As a grandmother she was distant, not what you'd call loving or available. That must have been true for Pops as well, I suppose, my father's father, though I don't haveany memory of him.

My father was a hurting man. He was hurt and he hurt in turn. He felt his father didn't love him or respect him. Pops had wanted my father to go into his printing business, Mason Printing, but he never told him the business was failing. Dad found out after his father died, when nothing could be done about it, when the business was failing, with no hope of recovery. Maybe Pops hadn't realized it. Maybe neither Pops nor Dad were smart businessmen.

Wonder if that's why being a smart businesswoman is so important to you, G.A. muses.

Small businesses like my Dad's were being eaten up by big ones and the printing unions were making it difficult for him to make ends meet.

They're taking more money home than I am, Dad bitterly confided about his workers one night over a drink. Everything was changing. Everything that was familiar was dying and a strange new order was taking its place. Just like now. My father felt Pops had set him up for failure in a business he really didn't want to be in. What Dad craved and needed, I believe, was for his father and his mother to love him, and to show that they loved him. What he got instead was failure and it scarred him. I saw it first when I was in high school, but didn't know then how sad he really was. Several years later, on a return trip home while performing in the national company ofCactus Flower, I was taken aback. His face was gray and sallow. Too much drinking and way too much smoking were apparent in the hard light of sunshine. His body was caved in, his shoulders stooped. And he wasn't at peace. He was sick and didn't know it. Or perhaps he did, but I didn't want to see it. He was young still, only forty-five or so.

Is that why I'm restless for peace? I wonder. But then, what is peace anyway? I ask myself.

Who cares about this drivel anyway? What good does it get you! Gloria Grahame whines. All this internal stuff! she huffs, her petulant voice pooh-poohing. I hear Gloria stamping her foot now. I pay her no mind.

Is that what I hope to achieve with this move? Peace? A new life, a new beginning? Or is it simply contentment? Is contentment really simple and is it really a possibility for me? For most of my life, I've felt like an outsider, a loner, a nomad, never truly at home wherever I've been. I've never felt as if I really belonged anywhere, even Hollywood. Well, maybe the ashram in India, although I haven't really tested that yet, not for longer than a month anyway. And I've certainly not felt truly content, ever.

Well, that's not totally true, Marsha dear. There was a time when you felt a part of things. You felt like you belonged in New York City when you first went there, and you felt that you belonged in the theater, desperately wanted to belong to that community of struggling, talented actors; and you felt at home in the ashram at Baba Muktananda's feet. This voice, another inside my head, momentarily soothes me. She's right, I do feel at home when I think of Baba, my spiritual teacher, my guru. I feel at home with this voice too. I've named her Grace, the Goddess. She's a sound rather than a personality or a face. When she's around she holds all my hopes and dreams for myself as a mature woman.

That was a long time ago, I say out loud, with a sigh. When? My first trip to India was . . . late 1970 something and the second trip was two years later. Yes, I felt I belonged there too. It's also true I felt I belonged with my first husband, Gary Dale Campbell, at least when we first married, but that changed, of course. And I felt when I married my second husband, Neil Simon, that I belonged with him forever, but that changed as well.

After our separation in 1983, but before moving here to the Pacific Palisades in 1987, I spent an awful lot of time on planes, traveling between New York, Europe, and California; a lot of time living in hotels, buying and renovating a New York apartment; and all the while renting houses in Los Angeles. I needed to be on the move following my second separation and divorce. Looking back, I was a whirling dervish, dancing out of control, but at the time I thought I knew what I was doing. However, contentment and peace were nowhere to be found, not around me.

Ten years married, ten years divorced. Married October 25, 1973. Separated April 4, 1983. Amicably divorced (if there is such a thing) April 1984. The thought ten years married, ten years divorced skips through my mind like a thrown stone, skimming across a pond. Why, I don't know. Like a mantra, it reverberates, seemingly apt, yet weird, all at the same time.

Ten years married, ten years divorced. Divorced from a man with whom I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life. Suddenly a sickening wave of emotion starts from deep inside, gaining speed and size. Nope, can't go there, I tell myself. I rub my face brusquely with both hands, shaking the feeling away.

Oh, you're ever so earnest, Miss Marsha! My, my, my. Ever so. This earnestness of yours is perhaps naively charming, but really now, at fifty? Come now! Some humor, some perspective is called for, don't you think? Right you are, Miss Eccentricity. She is another voice, my own Billie Burke, the Good Witch Glinda inThe Wizard of Oz. Thank you for those humbling but sage thoughts, Miss B.!

Honestly, these voices! Some of them are full-blown physical presences in my mind and some are not; some are merely voices from the void. Grace comes to me from this void while Miss Eccentricity, my eccentric self, sometimes appears as two distinct people, sisters if you will. The one that just spoke looks and sounds exactly like Billie Burke but sometimes I hear and see Martita Hunt as she appeared when playing Miss Havisham inGreat Expectations (the original one), sitting by her wedding cake with all those cobwebs hanging about, living in the dust and the past. They are flip sides of the same coin. One fluttery and a bit of a ditz, the other all rational, to the point, and no nonsense.

What do thenext ten years hold? I wonder, forcing myself to think ahead. Well, it's certainly going to be different, very, very different. Will the next ten years feel apt and weird too? Will my life evernot feel apt and weird? This time nobody speaks up.

I GUESS EVERYTHING always feels apt, weird, scary, and strange to me. My childhood did; grade school and high school did. Certain times in college definitely did. Going to New York and marrying Gary, then divorcing Gary, then marrying Neil. Coming to Los Angeles in the late spring of 1975 as Mrs. Neil Simon was a pretty scary and strange situation. I was a stepmother of one year and some months to two wonderful daughters, Nancy and Ellen, ages twelve and seventeen, and bride to a world-famous husband, some sixteen years older than me. We'd only known each other three weeks before we became a family, yet scary and strange though it was, I soon came to feel ever so settled and stable and secure. We had a formal house all our own in Bel-Air, California, and we had tandem professional careers. I believed we'd live out our lives together and die an old married couple with tons of grandchildren, and maybe even a child of our own. I wassure of it. Now it's almost twenty years later and here I am, standing at the curb of my cul-de-sac, taking a last look at my proper home for me alone, having hit the wall, my explanation for this life in shards at my feet. And here I am again, starting out on another journey that feels apt and weird and scary and strange, leaving tomorrow for parts unknown just like I did when I married Neil Simon, beginning another journey through uncharted territory, and at fifty years of age no less.

Neil and I never had that child of our own, but the girls are grown and married with children. I haven't remarried. Neil has twice.

No, three times. Once to you. Twice to Diane. Nevermind, G.A. He swore he'd never divorce again, no matter what, but he did. He still lives in the house that we lived in when we first came here from New York.

Such is life, dear girl, such is life. It's about time you moved upward and onward! This from Miss Havisham. I hate when she expounds with her maddening clichés.

You never know what's around the corner, that's the spice of life! Glinda the Good Witch warbles in tandem.

I rarely see Neil now, although we're always cordial and warm with each other when we do meet.

Honey, you are a remarkably different person now, compared to the young woman who married him and came here to live. And that is a mother of a truth. You've come a long way, Baby, and I for one am mighty proud of you. I can't help but smile. Thanks, G.A.

"And while we're at it, let'snot wallow, shall we?" she continues in her rueful tone.

G.A. got her initialed name during a therapy session several years ago. She appeared in a dream, and Marilyn Hershenson, my therapist at the time, asked me what she looked like, encouraging me to get to know her. Marilyn smiled as I described this guardian angel and asked if this unique voice had a name. G.A. popped into my head. We're old friends now, and as I said, she always makes me smile. She's been there for me since that first meeting, always. Think of Rosalind Russell straight out of the movieHis Girl Friday, wearing a tailored suit and jaunty hat, with that quick repartee Ms. Russell was famous for, and you get the picture.

Okay, okay, I sigh as I stretch my sore body, glancing again at the sunset. Those early years on Chalon Road in Bel-Air were heady and happy ones, though. I'd come from New York City with my new family, having already won an Oscar nomination forCinderella Liberty, and my first Golden Globe for that movie, although in those days the Golden Globe Awards was a rather amusingly tarnished affair.

Just like the statue you packed today, honey, G.A. quips. You're right, I think that poor old statue's awfully tarnished.

Then get on with it! booms the voice of my internal commander, the Pusher. This sonorous male voice generally gets my attention by issuing declarative statements or forceful commands, like now. I've never asked the Pusher if he has a name, but whenever he announces himself, I invariably envision him as Charlton Heston inThe Ten Commandments, hence the name Chuck Moses.

There are other voices in my head as well. I suppose they are unique to me, and that other people have voices of their own. Each of mine has a personality, an attitude, even if they don't all have a specific appearance. Some have titles; some have names. They are the various aspects of myself I've come to know through a process called Voice Dialogue.

Some of these selves or aspects of my personality are primary selves, and some are or have been disowned selves. For example, since my primary self growing up was a Good Girl, the opposite of that was the Rebel. Being born and raised a Catholic in a very strict household, I disowned my Rebel self in order to be a Good Girl. Eventually though, a disowned self will command attention, and left unacknowledged will assert itself, often through relationships. The Rebel then becomes a primary self and the Good Girl probably gets disowned. In my case, I ran away from home in my senior year of college (for a week during Christmas vacation) and began to trade in my Good Girl self for my Rebel self. Of course, way back then I didn't know that was what was happening. I just knew that I had to get out of St. Louis and get to that great city.

When I moved to New York City in the early fall of 1964, after graduation, I quickly married, and in the process hooked up with that disowned aspect of myself, the Rebel. The man I chose was Gary Dale Campbell. He was my James Dean, my Rebel self. I loved James Dean, especially inRebel Without a Cause, and I definitely identified with him. Gary, my first husband, reminded me of James Dean—I thought he evenlooked like him. We were both young and scared, hungry for love, and in search of comfort and a sense of security. We married in February 1965, and even though we eventually divorced, we have stayed close—very close as you shall see.

Yes, there are a lot of inner voices running through my mind. Perhaps it's a bit weird if you haven't had the pleasure, but I find it comforting to know that I—the me of me—am much bigger than I thought possible. Getting in touch with these inner voices has helped me to see myself and, consequently, other people with more compassion and has also helped me to understand and appreciate the relationships I have with friends and loved ones. Some of the voices or selves are more dominant than others. Some have appeared for special or limited occasions. Others, like G.A., Chuck Moses the Pusher, the inner Critic, the Sisters Eccentric, and Grace the goddess, stay around fairly frequently. Still others, that you haven't met yet, come and go depending on what is happening in my life. Men are often the catalyst for greater activity amongst them. Life is an ongoing process so there may be new voices that I haven't even met yet.

Disowned or primary, these are my selves: the Critic; the Patriarch, sometimes benevolent, sometimes insane; the Pusher, Chuck Moses; the Artist/Inner Child, Anna and Ed. Anna is six years old and is me when I was six. She looks exactly like a picture my mother has of me. I was introduced to her in an early experience with the Voice Dialogue process. Ed is around nine years old and doesn't look like anybody I know. He just showed up one day during the run ofNight of the Iguana at the Roundabout Theatre in New York. He's a great kid, my tomboy self, if you will. Then there's Gloria, the Collapser, who you've met, and the Goddess Grace, my integrated and realized self, who I hope will one day be a primary self, and G.A. my guardian angel and protector. There's the Good Girl, the Rebel, oh, and there's a nun self too, Sister Mary. Oh! And there's my Warrior self who showed up one day about six years ago in full tribal regalia prepared both to protect and do battle. I was having a difficult time getting rid of a very narcissistic and negative lover who shall remain nameless. I mentally conjured my Warrior that day while walking on the beach with Mr. Nameless. My Warrior appeared on my left (I actually saw him), walking just a bit away, a tall, beautiful, long-haired scout, with loincloth and spear, feather earrings, and strands of beads adorning his chest and arms. He was barefoot, and bronze in color, with startling blue eyes. Sensitive and strong. Think Daniel Day-Lewis inThe Last of the Mohicans and you've got the picture.

Now let's see, who else? There's my eccentric selves, Miss Havisham and Billie Burke as she appeared inThe Wizard of Oz and there's also Mr. Olympus; you haven't met him yet. He's the strictly business tycoon who's recently come onboard. He helped me learn how to deal with the authoritative men I've come across in business. He helped me take a hitting-the-wall experience in my professional career and transmute that experience into a successful one while racing cars and being my own business manager.

I certainly wish I'd known or owned him sooner. I used to believe that success in business and being an artist were at odds with each other, but there you are. Mr. Olympus also helped me to learn when not to bring my Artist self (Anna and/or Ed) into those important first meetings with producers, or those important, sometimes confrontational discussions with the power boys who are in charge. Sometimes I've brought Mr. Olympus, Grace,and my Warrior self to a meeting and it can get pretty exciting. Over the years I've learned to listen to and engage all these voices inside my head. I've learned to own them, respect them, and love them. But it wasn't always that way. I used to be petrified of them.

During childhood, adolescence, and as a young woman in her twenties and thirties, I was afraid there was something seriously wrong with me. I felt high on the list of possible crazies because these voices sounded like whole, separate people from myself. They used to fight each other—and me—for control and for my attention. I used to feel that I was a lot of different people, schizophrenic, like a woman on the verge, so to speak. There was a time when I was frightened to death of abandonment, afraid to be left alone. Now those fears are gone. I love being alone and I'm never lonely. That's because of all the internal work and contemplation and meditation. In fact, I'm grateful for all the voices and for my spiritual teachers. They all taught me not to be afraid to be alone. Baba Muktananda told me that he would always be with me and he is. And how could I feel alone with all these various aspects of myself popping up all the time!

Have I wasted these five years here, I wonder, taking a last look around at my neighborhood? I was trying to cling to my past in this house, a past that doesn't exist anymore, thinking that was my identity, on top of my work being my identity, trying to hold on to that identity and finding myself slamming