Tag: Joan Mazza

Reading a Memoir Takes Me Back by Joan Mazza

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

Reading a Memoir Takes Me Back

I knew before buying—
this memoir was authored
by the elder daughter of my
high school best friend, my maid-
of-honor, a mother who disappeared
from her daughters’ lives
to follow Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
How heartbreaking to read
of what it felt to be a child
shuttled to live with
a single father, a man
I remember, also unprepared
for parenting, but who stepped
up to do his best. How did
my friend fall for that carrot
of enlightenment? How
was she bamboozled
into believing going to India¬
and leaving her children
was a good idea?

It was the 1970s,
era of false promises
in tie-dye and disco dancing,
gurus and expanding freedoms
like a widening tornado
lifting us up into
what?
I flew only as far as Florida
to be psychoanalyzed
and made whole, not
re-broken. I didn’t know
it was a cult. Neither of us
landed safely until decades
later. I write to the author,
send her photos of her
tall and beautiful mother
in high school.

*

Joan Mazza worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, and taught workshops on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six self-help psychology books, including Dreaming Your Real Self. Her poetry has appeared in The Comstock Review, Prairie Schooner, Slant, Poet Lore, One Art, and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia and writes every day.

How It Ends by Joan Mazza

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

How It Ends

Think of those scenes I’ve wanted to replay,
to talk back, set him straight. Yes, to defend
my outrage without being called defensive.
He wanted me on call all night and day:
Take care of my dogs. Go check on my mother!
I wonder how many patients and other
saps were taken in, apprehensive
of his spouted diagnoses. Who sends
condolences to his beleaguered wife
after a long illness has taken his life?
What about his live-in girlfriend, Kathy?
From photos, you’d guess they all were happy.
Now the argument ends inside my head.
No more obsessing? I know he’s dead.

*

Joan Mazza worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, and taught workshops on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self. Her poetry has appeared in The Comstock Review, Prairie Schooner, Slant, Poet Lore, and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia and writes every day.

Fargin by Joan Mazza

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

Fargin

At last, a term for the opposite
of schadenfreude, Yiddish word
for a joyful feeling of sharing in
another’s happiness, success,
and wealth. Instead of taking
pleasure in another’s scandal
and humiliation, we celebrate
their accomplishments—not
just a book published, but one
on the bestseller list. We’re
thrilled to hear of the classmate,
neighbor, or cousin who got
elected, awarded a Nobel or Tony,
won the race. We don’t compare
ourselves or begrudge others’
triumphs as we plod in mediocrity.
We pass along their elation, spread
the Internet news, say, Congrats!
I’m happy for you! and mean it.

*

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, and taught workshops on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six psychology books, including Dreaming Your Real Self, and her poetry has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, The Comstock Review, Prairie Schooner, Slant, Poet Lore, and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia.

Three Poems by Joan Mazza

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

Waiting for the Doctor

Always late, he expected me to wait,
ready for the session’s start,
for me to take off my shoes,
lie down, not to complain or be angry
with him for keeping me waiting

for thirty or forty minutes, an hour,
sometimes two. I always arrive
early, never wanted to keep others
waiting for me. I don’t like
to feel rushed, prefer to allow time

for traffic, trouble, unexpected delays.
I waited in my car outside his house,
counted minutes. In the basement
of his house, I waited, in an area designed
for waiting, mesmerized by three giant

goldfish swimming in his giant tank.
If I was late, I lost that session’s time.
How long is too long to wait for someone
when you have an appointment? What
if he misses your scheduled time or

doesn’t show? If he never offers to
makeup time, he’s teaching you:
Your time doesn’t count. He’s the doctor.
He had important things that made
him late. I had a husband and a dog

waiting for me at home. I’d worked
a full day, had driven forty minutes,
hadn’t made or eaten dinner. I waited.
In charge, my analyst, my God decreed,
You have nothing to be angry about.

*

Tailored, Emerald Green

After Microbiology all day in Miami,
into the night I cut and sewed, hand-
stitched bound buttonholes, covered
buttons, lined the jacket in the same bold
silky fabric as the turtleneck blouse,

a suit that fit me loose enough to flow,
cuffs swaying with my walk, bright green
as the forest I longed for all those years
toiling in Florida. I waltz into my session
aglow, proud of my effort and outcome,
so well completed after a long hiatus
from my sewing machine.

My psychiatrist scowls at my twirl.
Why are you wearing that?
I made it. My voice shakes.
You’re all covered up! It’s a tent!

And so we spend another session
on his interpretation, his certainty
of my need to hide my body
up to my chin, my wearing pants,
not skirts. Proof of my hang-ups
and fears, proof of how much
more therapy I need with him.

*

What did you learn from your therapist?

All my friends were psychopaths
as were the men I dated, no matter if
I met them in church or bars. I was easily

manipulated into paying half, cooking
for men who wouldn’t take me out, only
wanted to get laid. (Didn’t I want sex too?)

Look how gullible and trusting I was
of all the wrong people. How grateful
I should be for his guidance, for teaching

to set limits, to say no, but not to him. When
I protested when he was two hours late
for a session, hours late for dinner, when

he asked to borrow money, when he mocked
my hand-tailored clothes, my haircut, he said,
You have no reason to be angry.

Too gullible and trusting of all the wrong
people, people took advantage. Couldn’t
I see who was being helpful?

*

Joan Mazza worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, and taught workshops on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self. Her poetry has appeared in The Comstock Review (forthcoming), Valparaiso Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Adanna Literary Journal, Poet Lore, and The Nation. She stays safely isolated in solitude in rural central Virginia.