—From EF—

Sometime around 1998 I decided I should try to do something about my fragmented inner self, and I created a series of seven integration rituals. I’d been given a big hint when a song downloaded itself into my brain during a long drive. “Seven sisters, each one an only child, crowded in a room where no one has the key.” It described each sister in a phrase, but left one out—Blanca.

There’s a hidden pocket of my mind I call Blanca’s Cave, and it contains a list of tasks I haven’t dealt with. When I’ve delayed something past some magic line, it goes into Blanca’s Cave and disappears from my memory. It sits there in the dark and sometimes itches, but mostly it’s hidden from me until something reminds me.

I’ve had a harsh flurry of these in the recent past. I don’t know if it’s because I’m stirring stuff up with internal family systems therapy, which I’m loving, but it does keep surprising me. I came home from a brief jaunt to Italy and had plenty of time to write this by the weekend. Missed the deadline. Tried again, missed again, and Blanca got it. I managed to grab it by the tail and thought, “What am I gonna write about?” (I never pre-plan these things), and then of course got the answer. Write about Blanca’s Cave, dummy.

So with this out of the way, I need to move on to whatever Blanca’s got, deal with it, and insist on thanking myself. I’ve got a backlog to deal with, but the trick is to reinforce success, one damn puddle at a time. I think I’ll start with the morning glories, which have decided to take over the whole yard.

Onward.

###