Walker https://phoenesse.com/series/walker-a-memoir/ Walker is a memoir about one woman’s spiritual journey to open her heart and develop compassion. Through it all, her own gumption would be her steady companion. It starts out with a young girl raised in a singing Lutheran family where things looked good on the outside. But inside, Jill Loree was struggling. Later, she would “trudge the dreary road of destiny,” as the AA Big Book puts it, getting sober at 26 and picking up only one white chip. That’s not nothing, considering that most of Jill Loree’s childhood memories are infused with her father’s drinking. Her mother, on the other hand, had a controlling, co-dependent streak that wouldn’t end. Sounds dreary indeed, right? In this spiritual memoir however, Jill Loree artfully lifts the story out of the ditch and finds the grace weaving between the lines. Walker also merges in a touch of poetry—her own, her sons’ and even her Dad’s—adding heart, depth and levity to the telling. Her gentle wit and brisk writing pace keeps things moving along. True to the title, there’s no need to sit and stew in misery. Today, Jill Loree’s spiritual path is filled with the light of Christ, which is what she has discovered emerges from the core of one’s being after clearing away the detritus accumulated in youth. Just as the Pathwork Guide said it would. That’s the deeper message she is now passionate about sharing, and which shines through in this warm telling of the story of her life. Fri, 01 May 2026 16:05:00 +0000 ©2018 Jill Loree A Memoir Phoenesse serial Walker is a memoir about one woman’s spiritual journey to open her heart and develop compassion. Through it all, her own gumption would be her steady companion. It starts out with a young girl raised in a singing Lutheran family where things looked good on the outside. But inside, Jill Loree was struggling. Later, she would “trudge the dreary road of destiny,” as the AA Big Book puts it, getting sober at 26 and picking up only one white chip. That’s not nothing, considering that most of Jill Loree’s childhood memories are infused with her father’s drinking. Her mother, on the other hand, had a controlling, co-dependent streak that wouldn’t end. Sounds dreary indeed, right? In this spiritual memoir however, Jill Loree artfully lifts the story out of the ditch and finds the grace weaving between the lines. Walker also merges in a touch of poetry—her own, her sons’ and even her Dad’s—adding heart, depth and levity to the telling. Her gentle wit and brisk writing pace keeps things moving along. True to the title, there’s no need to sit and stew in misery. Today, Jill Loree’s spiritual path is filled with the light of Christ, which is what she has discovered emerges from the core of one’s being after clearing away the detritus accumulated in youth. Just as the Pathwork Guide said it would. That’s the deeper message she is now passionate about sharing, and which shines through in this warm telling of the story of her life. false yes a4518151-389b-5ec7-baa6-c898d4ec15a2 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 Poem https://phoenesse.com/podcast/poem/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 20:12:42 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15654 From Proverbs and Tiny Songs

  You walking, your footsteps are the road, and nothing else; there is no road, walker, you make the road by walking. By walking you make the road, and when you look backward, you see the path that you never will step on again. Walker, there is no road, Only wind-trails in the sea.

– By Antonio Machado (1875–1939), translated by Robert Bly

]]> From Proverbs and Tiny Songs

  You walking, your footsteps are the road, and nothing else; there is no road, walker, you make the road by walking. By walking you make the road, and when you look backward, you see the path that you never will step on again. Walker, there is no road, Only wind-trails in the sea.

– By Antonio Machado (1875–1939), translated by Robert Bly

]]> false no 00:00:51 No no Preface https://phoenesse.com/podcast/preface/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 20:10:29 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15653 They say to be careful when pointing a finger at someone else because you always have three pointing back at yourself. Never have I felt this to be truer than while writing this book. 

I’ve done a lot of work on myself. And as I’ve worked my way through challenging feelings stemming from my childhood, I’ve sensed the truth: This doesn’t make me a hero. It means I belonged in the remedial class. What I experienced in my childhood was a reflection of my soul dents and inner splits that I came into this lifetime to heal. I’ve gotten my money’s worth, shall we say.

]]> They say to be careful when pointing a finger at someone else because you always have three pointing back at yourself. Never have I felt this to be truer than while writing this book. 

I’ve done a lot of work on myself. And as I’ve worked my way through challenging feelings stemming from my childhood, I’ve sensed the truth: This doesn’t make me a hero. It means I belonged in the remedial class. What I experienced in my childhood was a reflection of my soul dents and inner splits that I came into this lifetime to heal. I’ve gotten my money’s worth, shall we say.

]]> false no 00:08:21 No no Prologue https://phoenesse.com/podcast/prologue/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 20:09:18 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15652 When I was a junior in college, I upgraded my employment situation from throwing pizzas at Sammy’s to serving drinks across the street at Houligan’s bar and restaurant. Houligan’s was a downtown establishment that was more upscale than your average college bar along Water Street. Tips in the bar area, however, generally consisted of leftover change, and since the cocktail waitress wage was $2/hour, tips mattered. After a while, I slid over to bartending where you still got some tips, but received a minimum wage of $3.25/hour. On a slow weeknight in a college town, that was like getting a nice raise...

]]> When I was a junior in college, I upgraded my employment situation from throwing pizzas at Sammy’s to serving drinks across the street at Houligan’s bar and restaurant. Houligan’s was a downtown establishment that was more upscale than your average college bar along Water Street. Tips in the bar area, however, generally consisted of leftover change, and since the cocktail waitress wage was $2/hour, tips mattered. After a while, I slid over to bartending where you still got some tips, but received a minimum wage of $3.25/hour. On a slow weeknight in a college town, that was like getting a nice raise...

]]> false no 00:03:58 No no Chapter 1 [Part One | Childhood; Barron (1963-1971)] https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-1/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 20:08:08 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15651 I was born and raised in Barron County, a humble, rural area in northwest Wisconsin. In high school, I learned from my mom, who was then the Barron County Treasurer, that Barron County actually has more cows than people. Through the years, I’ve shared this tidbit a number of times, as though it explains some things. Exactly what, I don’t know...

]]> I was born and raised in Barron County, a humble, rural area in northwest Wisconsin. In high school, I learned from my mom, who was then the Barron County Treasurer, that Barron County actually has more cows than people. Through the years, I’ve shared this tidbit a number of times, as though it explains some things. Exactly what, I don’t know...

]]> false no 00:06:04 No no Chapter 2 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-2/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 20:07:09 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15650 Near our house in Barron was a dam that created a small body of water, just a widening of the Yellow River really, which was traversed in two places by a road and a railroad track. We lived along the road, not far away, and I have vivid memories related to this body of water. The first is that there was a peninsula we could walk to by way of a fairly large field directly behind our house...

]]> Near our house in Barron was a dam that created a small body of water, just a widening of the Yellow River really, which was traversed in two places by a road and a railroad track. We lived along the road, not far away, and I have vivid memories related to this body of water. The first is that there was a peninsula we could walk to by way of a fairly large field directly behind our house...

]]> false no 00:05:08 No no Chapter 3 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-3/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 20:06:14 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15649 From what I understand, the complexion of this homogenous white-bread area has changed quite a bit in recent decades, owing to the availability of jobs at the turkey plant which support so many families in the region. Asians, Hispanics and Africans—including refugees from the civil war in Somalia—are now all part of what makes up the little burg of Barron. For me, until I got to college, I had only white kids for classmates...

]]> full From what I understand, the complexion of this homogenous white-bread area has changed quite a bit in recent decades, owing to the availability of jobs at the turkey plant which support so many families in the region. Asians, Hispanics and Africans—including refugees from the civil war in Somalia—are now all part of what makes up the little burg of Barron. For me, until I got to college, I had only white kids for classmates...

]]> false no 00:12:21 No no Chapter 4 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-4/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 20:04:57 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15648 The old house we lived in was, I’ve been told, quite a dump when my parents bought it for the grand sum of $6500. (My mother cried—and they were not tears of joy—the first time my dad showed it to her.) I don’t think it’s a matter of comparing that sum to today’s dollars. No, it’s a reflection of how much work the place needed. But of course, I didn’t know any of that when I was a kid, and my parents had made good headway by the time my memories kick in...

]]> The old house we lived in was, I’ve been told, quite a dump when my parents bought it for the grand sum of $6500. (My mother cried—and they were not tears of joy—the first time my dad showed it to her.) I don’t think it’s a matter of comparing that sum to today’s dollars. No, it’s a reflection of how much work the place needed. But of course, I didn’t know any of that when I was a kid, and my parents had made good headway by the time my memories kick in...

]]> false no 00:12:47 No no Chapter 5 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-5/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 20:03:55 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15647 Northern Wisconsin is a hotbed of people who are handy and good at crafts, and my parents were champs. I remember pulling over along a roadside somewhere because my mother had spotted cattails that hadn’t yet exploded and gone to seed. We had those cattails as part of a decoration in our house for many years. I still think of her when I see fresh cattails somewhere. She once made a light for over our cabin’s kitchen table by painting a pattern on a cardboard ice cream bucket and cutting out little triangles for the light to shine through. Very crafty...

]]> Northern Wisconsin is a hotbed of people who are handy and good at crafts, and my parents were champs. I remember pulling over along a roadside somewhere because my mother had spotted cattails that hadn’t yet exploded and gone to seed. We had those cattails as part of a decoration in our house for many years. I still think of her when I see fresh cattails somewhere. She once made a light for over our cabin’s kitchen table by painting a pattern on a cardboard ice cream bucket and cutting out little triangles for the light to shine through. Very crafty...

]]> false no 00:14:16 No no Chapter 6 [Part Two | More Childhood, Adolescence; Rice Lake (1971-1981)] https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-6/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 20:02:32 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15646 My life pivoted when I was eight and we moved to the larger city of Rice Lake, 12 miles to the north. During the time we lived in Barron, my dad had received his master’s degree in music from the University of Wisconsin–Superior. I can’t say I had any awareness that this was going on, but our move to Rice Lake involved his taking a teaching position at UW-Barron County campus in Rice Lake, a two-year school that was an extension of the statewide university system. He would teach there until he retired...

]]> My life pivoted when I was eight and we moved to the larger city of Rice Lake, 12 miles to the north. During the time we lived in Barron, my dad had received his master’s degree in music from the University of Wisconsin–Superior. I can’t say I had any awareness that this was going on, but our move to Rice Lake involved his taking a teaching position at UW-Barron County campus in Rice Lake, a two-year school that was an extension of the statewide university system. He would teach there until he retired...

]]> false no 00:11:54 No no Chapter 7 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-7/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 20:01:24 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15645 Rice Lake, with a current population of 8500, was (and still is) the largest city for 100 miles in any direction, save for Eau Claire 60 miles away, which is where I went to college. Cedar Mall opened in 1976 on the south end of town, when I was in eighth grade, decimating the downtown when the department store Herberger’s moved to the mall. Along with Woolworth and JCPenney for anchor stores, the mall was the place to be. Very uptown. I’ve visited Cedar Mall in recent years, however, and it’s now a near-abandoned little ghost town...

]]> Rice Lake, with a current population of 8500, was (and still is) the largest city for 100 miles in any direction, save for Eau Claire 60 miles away, which is where I went to college. Cedar Mall opened in 1976 on the south end of town, when I was in eighth grade, decimating the downtown when the department store Herberger’s moved to the mall. Along with Woolworth and JCPenney for anchor stores, the mall was the place to be. Very uptown. I’ve visited Cedar Mall in recent years, however, and it’s now a near-abandoned little ghost town...

]]> false no 00:10:21 No no Chapter 8 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-8/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 20:00:19 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15644 Moving into our new neighborhood was like transitioning into a whole new world, a world where there were kids. Lots and lots of kids. And they would come out of the woodwork in the evenings to play kickball (while still daylight) or hide-and-go-tap (after it got dark). All toes went into a circle and the next person to be “it” was determined by going around and tapping each shoe to the rhythm of “Bubblegum, bubblegum in a dish, how many pieces do you wish? “3” 1-2-3-and you are not it. Bubblegum, bubblegum…”

]]> false no 00:02:38 No no Chapter 9 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-9/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:59:26 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15643 By and large, transitioning into third grade in the new school was seamless. Then again, there was this one problem: Janet. She and I would go on to become roommates our senior year in college, and today, she and another friend Melinda, whom I wouldn’t meet for a few more years, are two close friends with whom I get together roughly once a year. Back then, the three of us didn’t hang out all together so much, although one summer early in high school we all joined up with a church youth group for a weeklong canoe trip down the Namekagon and St. Croix rivers. But those first years with Janet were hard...

]]> false no 00:05:22 No no Chapter 10 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-10/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:58:25 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15642 Aside from weekends spent camping or at the cabin, we took one vacation together as a family. When I was nine or ten, we went on a driving loop to Michigan, staying at a Holiday Inn one night—a pool, woo hoo!— and with Aunt Wilma’s family the next few...

]]> false no 00:02:33 No no Chapter 11 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-11/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:57:20 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15641 Moving into sixth grade was a big step up into middle school, what with combination lockers and boy/girl dances and all. Janet had been diagnosed the summer before with severe scoliosis and was now wearing a full body brace around the clock. It took a lot of the wind out of her sails. And I met Melinda, who would become my best friend for the years to come...

]]> false no 00:09:58 No no Chapter 12 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-12/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:56:12 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15640 In the years leading up to that first round of treatment, my dad had spent lots of weekends singing-for-hire with the We3. Jim’s daughter Teri and I would pal around at some of these outings, dressing alike and becoming fast friends. Sometime around 1974, the group was asked to sing in the chalet of an area ski hill on weekend afternoons. Part, or maybe all, of the payment included free annual ski passes for everyone in the family...

]]> false no 00:05:23 No no Chapter 13 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-13/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:55:12 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15639 Halfway through my first year of middle school, Janet was making a point of noting whether our names were on one of two lists called Honor Roll and Honorable Mention. I had never heard of these lists and didn’t know what it meant to be on one of them. “It has to do with your grades,” she told me. If you got almost all A’s, you got on Honor Roll. I had made Honorable Mention... 

]]> false no 00:04:12 No no Chapter 14 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-14/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:54:14 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15638 Highlights from my years in middle school included an eighth grade “Math of Pollution” contest. Eighth graders in 13 schools were tested in order to select a team of kids who would compete in an event held at the Barron County campus. I made the cut. My math teacher, Mr. Paul, asked me, “Have you taken this test before?” I guess he didn’t think I had it in me. Then again, I didn’t know I did either. Our team took first place...

]]> false no 00:10:27 No no Chapter 15 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-15/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:53:03 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15637 After my father went through treatment the first time, he started going to AA meetings, while my mom went to Alanon and I attended Alateen. I’m guessing I went to Sunday evening meetings with them for a year or more, but the timing is hazy in my memory. I do recall an interesting dilemma that surfaced in our sharing: If I have to tell my parents (and mostly I meant my mother) that I want her to pay attention to me—to love me—then if she does, I won’t want it because I will never know if she means it. It will only be because I said something. So should I say anything? The group leader didn’t know either. In the end, I never said anything...

]]> false no 00:18:23 No no Chapter 16 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-16/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:51:42 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15636 Heading into my freshman year of high school, I once again didn’t make the cut at cheerleading tryouts. So instead I went out for the basketball team. According to the coach, I had a fairly high vertical jump, but beyond that, I was awful at the sport. I’m not sure we won a single game—although our team actually had some genuinely good players—and I nearly scored a basket for the other team. We were playing Cumberland and my cousin Trudy was on that other team. So embarrassing...

]]> false no 00:09:12 No no Chapter 17 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-17/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:50:39 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15635 Musicals were my other first love. Over the course of four years, I was in nine of them. Two were at high school (Annie Get Your Gun and Anything Goes), two at a local theater called the Red Barn (Li’l Abner and Where’s Charley?) where my dad was music director, and five were at the Barron County campus (Bye Bye Birdie, Oklahoma, Brigadoon, Fiddler on the Roof and Hello Dolly!) where my dad was music director for the Summer Music Clinic... 

]]> false no 00:14:28 No no Chapter 18 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-18/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:49:34 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15634 When my brother Pete taunted me with cruel comments about being fat, he was, of course, totally in the wrong. Then again, in all honesty, he wasn’t totally wrong. That’s why such taunts work; they hit a tender target. Upon our arrival in Rice Lake, I had neighborhood friends for the first time. We’d hop on our bikes and head anywhere we pleased. The whole town was within reach...

]]> false no 00:12:37 No no Chapter 19 [Part Three | College; Eau Claire (1981-1985)] https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-19/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:48:05 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15633 Rounding the corner out of high school into college, my mother was becoming an active shaker and mover in the world of Amway. She’d even had shelves for inventory built into the basement. My brothers were also heavily engaged with it for a time, and I was terribly hurt that no one was encouraging me to follow that path. Thank God for small favors... 

]]> false no 00:11:49 No no Chapter 20 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-20/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:46:51 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15632 Being on the pom-pom squad my freshman year was just the best. I loved it. I even loved walking up the horrendous flights of stairs through the woods to the PE building where we had two-hour practices, two or three nights a week. I loved the games, I loved being with the other girls, and I loved the cute outfits...

]]> false no 00:04:06 No no Chapter 21 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-21/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:45:46 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15631 In the spring of my freshman year, the pom-pom squad had three events to finish out the season. First, there was a party (not like we hadn’t had enough of those.) Second, there was a banquet. And third, there was the vote to elect the next year’s captain and co-captain...

]]> false no 00:08:00 No no Chapter 22 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-22/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:44:44 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15630 There were two other extenuating circumstances that second year that added to my load. First, I was still working one or two shifts a week at Sammy’s. Fortunately, given my parent’s contribution and my scholarships, I hadn’t had to take out any loans. But I was cutting it close and needed the money... 

]]> false no 00:08:14 No no Chapter 23 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-23/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:43:44 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15629 One of the perks of being a student at UW-EC was free health care. More correctly, the cost of it was included in our tuition. So you just walked into the clinic and they took care of you. In the fall of my freshman year, I walked in and told the doctor I hadn’t had a period for over a year. He asked if I’d ever had milk discharged from my breast. I stared at him with big eyes. “Any time, ever, even once?” he encouraged me. “Yes,” I admitted. I had...

]]> false no 00:18:11 No no Chapter 24 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-24/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:42:18 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15628 Scott and I were a good couple, and chances are we would have endured even if we hadn’t been slammed together just coming out of the gate. But the abortion cemented us more tightly than normal dating might have. At the time we met, I had moved again, and was now rooming with Janet. She had started out at Purdue, but later transferred to Eau Claire to study medical technology. (She would actually go on to become a nurse anesthetist.) We ran into each other our junior year and would sometimes study together...

]]> false no 00:03:16 No no Chapter 25 [Part Four | Fortune 500 Jobs; Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta (1985-1989)] https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-25/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:41:07 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15627 Scott and I were the same age, but he was on the five-year plan in school. I had blanketed the US with resumes my final semester and came up with two interviews just after graduation. One was with G. D. Searle & Company—makers of Nutrasweet—in Chicago, and the other with Rohm & Haas Company—I had never heard of them—in Philadelphia...

]]> false no 00:11:03 No no Chapter 26 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-26/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:39:55 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15626 Rohm & Haas assigned me my first territory at the end of 1985, which was to be based in Los Angeles and included the northern half of LA, plus Denver, Albuquerque and El Paso. Because I like to be efficient and also because we had so little money, Scott and I used my one week, company paid, house-hunting trip as our honeymoon...

]]> false no 00:11:19 No no Chapter 27 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-27/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:38:53 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15625 If there is one thing positive I can say about my drinking career, it would be this: it was short. But it wasn’t over yet. Before the call came about the transfer, I’d started up an affair with one of my customers. In my defense, at least I wasn’t sleeping around with all of them. But there was one...

]]> false no 00:16:32 No no Chapter 28 [Part Five | Advertising Jobs, Family; Atlanta (1989-1998)] https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-28/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:37:17 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15624 AA is filled to the brim with sayings, and one I heard right off the bat was: “No major changes your first year.” But they also said: “You need to change your playmates and your playgrounds.” Traveling around my five-state territory was like putting temptation under my nose every day, so in an imperfect world, changing jobs was in my better interest...

]]> false no 00:04:17 No no Chapter 29 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-29/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:36:12 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15623 Working at Pratt & Buehl, a business-to-business agency in Buckhead with fewer than 15 employees, would turn out to be one of the more difficult jobs of my life. Not because of the work—I enjoyed writing and I was good at it—and not because of the co-workers—they were a great bunch, and one became my roommate for a time—but because I hated the owners. Stated more accurately, I had a lot of hate in me, and the owners of that agency were where I decided to aim it. The fancy term for this is transference...

]]> false no 00:09:40 No no Chapter 30 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-30/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:35:01 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15622 In my mid-twenties, I had no interest in having children. It wouldn’t be unfair to say I had an aversion. I heard a colleague comment once, “They’re noisy and they smell bad.” ‘Exactly right,’ I thought. But then a switch flipped, and by the time we were married, I was raring to go...

]]> false no 00:08:03 No no Chapter 31 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-31/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:33:58 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15621 The gig at Sawyer lasted a few years, but work for me was slow there too. A lot of the people were terrific but I found it hard to fit in. These were ad agency types and I had a degree in chemistry. I was a bit of a square peg in a round hole. More aptly, I sometimes felt like a turd in a punch bowl. Some of the immature graphic artists made working there unpleasant—I found dead palmetto bugs in my desk drawer one day—and management turned a blind eye because, “Oh, you know those creative types…”

]]> false no 00:06:10 No no Chapter 32 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-32/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:32:36 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15620 Within three months of starting at Donino, I was on to the next position, moving to an in-house advertising department at a financial software manufacturer. The name at the time was Servantis, and their corporate motto, inspired by the deep Christian ethics of the founder, was “You who would be greatest, let them be servant to all.” They meant well...

]]> false no 00:04:42 No no Chapter 33 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-33/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:31:40 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15619 The best thing to come out of my time at Servantis, other than the chance to once again work with some truly outstanding people, was Jackson, who was born in September of 1995. If last names are interchangeable, middle names are downright disposable. So Rick and I chose to do something nice with our boys’ middle names. For Charlie, we gave him Paul, in honor of Rick’s dad who had passed on before Rick and I met. Then we surprised my dad by giving Jackson the middle name Edward. Imagine our surprise when one of Jackson’s closest friends growing up was also Jackson Edward...

]]> false no 00:16:09 No no Chapter 34 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-34/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:30:21 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15618 When I parted ways with Servantis, I had no backup plan. That isn’t entirely true, because as a copywriter working in the advertising business, freelancing was always an option. Unfortunately, it didn’t offer the kind of security I preferred. But my preferences weren’t my biggest concern just then, my bills were...

]]> false no 00:19:09 No no Chapter 35 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-35/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:28:49 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15617 One month after Sarah’s funeral, the healer I was seeing in my chiropractor’s office suggested I read a Pathwork lecture called Love, Eros and Sex. This came up after I shared with her about my struggling marriage. The mere fact that I was working with this healer was a miracle. At that point, I was a regular visitor to a chiropractor, having first gone to one when I was in middle school and my hip popped out doing the straddle over the horse in gym class...

]]> false no 00:13:31 No no Chapter 36 [Part Six | Marcom, Pathwork; Atlanta (1998-2014)] https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-36/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:27:27 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15616 At the beginning of that summer of 1998, ready to move on from Data Transit after three years, I found an ad in the paper for a plastics company looking for a marketing communications manager who had a degree in chemistry. You don’t see that combination every day. I sent them my resume and then broke into tears when I got a FedEx envelope the next day with details for arranging an interview...

]]> false no 00:04:21 No no Chapter 37 https://phoenesse.com/podcast/chapter-37/ Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:26:15 +0000 https://phoenesse.com/?post_type=podcast&p=15615 I’d been at BPAmoco for a year when Rick and I moved from one end of Cherry Tree Lane to the other. Let me explain. My boys were in daycare at Apostles Daycare prior to starting grade school, and a little girl named Mackenzie was in their class. Mackenzie’s mom, Shawna, had built a house on the other end of my street that I was drooling over...

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