The Sitting Swing
Synopsis
Irene Watson's work as a therapist could go no further until she faced her own past.
Her poignant and inspiring memoir begins at the end, in a recovery center, where
she has gone to understand a childhood fraught with abuse, guilt, and uncertainty.
Her powerful story is a testament that it’s never too late to change your life, never
too late to heal.
The Sitting Swing was a rope swing, hung from a tree next to the tiny cottage her
Russian immigrant father built by hand from hand-milled logs and mud in
Northern Canada in the early 20th century. Any motion at all would smash the
child into a vigorous rose bush. It was a sitting swing in a family not given to play,
in a childhood stretched between two very different cultures.
Irene was born into a tight Ukrainian-speaking community and a family struggling
with guilt, shame, and grief over the death of a first-born child—a son. The old world
immigrant culture placed much of the blame for Irene's brother’s death on her
mother, causing her to hold her next child close to home, segregated from the new
culture, victim to the blunt aggression of male cousins, and scornful townspeople.
The Sitting Swing shows us how guilt, fear and ignorance are borne by our children.
Two distinct parts of the book look at an abusive child rearing and the process of
recovery that takes place years later. On many levels this is a classic immigrant
story showing us that change, growth, forgiveness, and recovery are possible. It is
also a heart warming healing story and a testament to the strength and courage of
the human spirit.
First chapter:
It was the damndest thing that they thought I’d fall for it. A video camera in plain
site, one corner of my room, pointing right in on everything I’d be doing for the next
twenty eight days. Not likely. I couldn’t figure why they wouldn’t bother hiding the
thing. Even a hanging plant in front might have kept me from noticing for an hour
or two. But they didn’t even try, and that was their real weakness as far as I was
concerned. Here they were, helping some of the most messed-up people you can
imagine, people addicted to just about anything , and they thought these people
would just reveal everything about themselves in an instant? That they would
have cameras watching them get dressed, watching them sleep?
Some experts. I started to wonder why I’d paid good money to be here. But there it is
- we all want to fit in. I had too many friends graduate from this utopian little
institute, and they all swore it changed their lives. They all used “Avalon talk” as I
called it — the catch phrases and jargon used in this Avalon Center. Tiring as it was
to listen to their new language, they were my friends, and it was even more of a
challenge to be outside the group in that way. So, I decided to call some of my own
challenges “addictions” and to make a trip here. Twenty eight days of dealing with
real addicts, then I could graduate and get back on the inside track with my friends.
I pulled a chair out from the small desk in my room and turned it to face the
camera, then sat and reclined myself a bit against its stiff back. I folded my arms
across my chest and looked with a cold grit at the camera. I probably looked the way
my own kids did when they decided to pull the rebel thing. It’s not that I was overly
confrontational, but a camera was a statement, and I would make one right back. I
stared it down, just hoping that someone was watching me live. I wanted my eyes to
tell the story — you might have me stuck here, you might control a lot of what I do,
and I might even tell you a thing or two about myself, but you’re not invading my
privacy. There was a me that I would share; there was a me that I would not.
After a three-minute stare down, I got up from my seat and rummaged through my
suitcase, pulling out a white washcloth. That would do the trick. I walked to the
camera and flipped the cloth up over top the thing, covering its lens. I brushed my
hands against each other in mocking way. Done and done, I thought.
The camera wasn’t the only reason I felt this place was like a prison. For starters,
you weren’t allowed to bring books, magazines, tapes, a radio. No incoming phone
calls either. They pretty much had your input covered. From then on, you’d get
input from them or from your own brain, and that was about it. And that still wasn’
t it for the prison atmosphere. Everything I’d need for those twenty eight days, I had
to bring with me — clothes, toiletries, extra money. Well, they did offer things like
massages, so cash wasn’t a bad idea. But isn’t that a little like pleasantries to keep
shackled people happy? Amazing that I’d heard nothing but good things about the
place from my friends. Most of these points I knew ahead of time, but the camera
had put me on edge. Maybe the big joke among graduates was to get other people to
attend so they’d experience a month of prison too, sort of a hazing ceremony to get
back inside with your friends. Looking around myself, that didn't seem out of the
question.
The place was called “Avalon” with good reason. Well, it wasn’t so glorious as the
island from the Arthurian legends, where magic was supposed to reside and where
Arthur himself was said to be healed of a mortal wound. But the place was on an
island, relatively hidden from the world, connected to the mainland only by a long
and narrow bridge. Maybe half a mile from the center, there was a very small
resort community, resident population five hundred year ’round, and twice that in
the summertime. It wasn’t what you’d call a booming tourist destination, but it had
its visitors. A road circling the island connected the community, the Center, and
substantial woods covering the area.
Those woods and this room seemed the only real havens, now that the camera was
out of the loop, where I would have some time to myself. The rest of Avalon was
made up of common rooms where groups would gather either for recreation or for
talking sessions led by the staff here. Those were the sessions, I’d been told, when
people learned what it meant to open themselves up in front of a bunch of other
addicts. And if scrutiny from other addicts wasn’t bad enough, that’s when the staff
would direct you to confront all your issues. I wasn’t one to avoid issues, but there
are two facts about that. First, you don’t deal with that stuff in front of other people.
On that point I was sure. The last thing someone needs on their path to healing is to
have a bunch of others judging them. Second, I had some disappointments about my
life so far. But I doubted that any of my challenges really counted as issues, not
things that had to be “fixed” by a professional anyway. Pain about some choices I’d
made? Yes. A bit of insecurity about who I was? Yes. I wanted to spend time thinking
about these and setting new goals. Surely new goals would help point to the “real
me,” as my friends now put it. But I just couldn’t see how these could be “fixed” with
therapy. After all, a little pain and a little insecurity didn’t make me broken.
I sighed a deep sigh. Like it or not, I was here now, and I had paid to be here. Twenty
eight days. I had better settle in as best I could, so I started to unpack. As I opened
my few drawers and started setting in my clothes, I thought about the airport
where I’d arrived. At a small bar near the luggage, I had met many of my fellow
“addicts” as we waited for our ride to the Center, and I watched in disbelief as many
of them chugged down drinks. I said a silent prayer of thanks that, if I had to be
surrounded by addicts, at least I wasn’t one for real. I felt sorry for them, but was
grateful not to be among their ranks.
There were kids here in their twenties, and elders in their seventies — people up and
down the scale who had seen something wrong with life as it was and wanted it
fixed. There was something positive about that, and as much as I pitied most of
them, I also had a small sense of hope. As I finished unpacking my clothes, I smiled
with that in mind.
And then I looked up to see a woman staring into my room from the bathroom,
toothbrush held still in her mouth. I sighed again. Forty eight years old and I was
sharing a bathroom with a perfect stranger who seemed interested to spy on me. I
say “spy” because she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at the washcloth over
the camera. I pretended not to notice what she was looking at, and she walked back
to spit out some toothpaste. When I knew she was finished, I went in to introduce
myself. “Irene Watson,” I said, hand out for her to shake.
She took my hand but looked sort of absently past my shoulder. “What’s that rag
doing up there?”
I shrugged. “A little privacy never bothered anyone, don’t you think?”
She blinked, then looked at me maybe for the first time. “Sure.” She wandered back
to her bedroom, and I didn’t learn till later that her name was Gabby, Gabriella in
fact. A native Puerto Rican living now in Connecticut, she went by Gabby, and
later, I decided it was a good name for her.
Yes, things were off to a terrific start. My best course of action was becoming clearer
all the time. Give them some things about me to play with, to feel that they could
fix. Show how happy I was to have my problems resolved, and what a different
person I could be at graduation. That way I wouldn’t be opening up to people like
Gabby, or to people who would put cameras in my room. And along the way, I could
make use of the retreat — open up, perhaps, and spend time in personal reflection.
Then at graduation, maybe I really would be different. They could let me go,
believing that they’d made a difference, and I would leave, knowing that I had made
a difference on my own.
But that’s not how it worked at all.
Synopsis
Irene Watson's work as a therapist could go no further until she faced her own past.
Her poignant and inspiring memoir begins at the end, in a recovery center, where
she has gone to understand a childhood fraught with abuse, guilt, and uncertainty.
Her powerful story is a testament that it’s never too late to change your life, never
too late to heal.
The Sitting Swing was a rope swing, hung from a tree next to the tiny cottage her
Russian immigrant father built by hand from hand-milled logs and mud in
Northern Canada in the early 20th century. Any motion at all would smash the
child into a vigorous rose bush. It was a sitting swing in a family not given to play,
in a childhood stretched between two very different cultures.
Irene was born into a tight Ukrainian-speaking community and a family struggling
with guilt, shame, and grief over the death of a first-born child—a son. The old world
immigrant culture placed much of the blame for Irene's brother’s death on her
mother, causing her to hold her next child close to home, segregated from the new
culture, victim to the blunt aggression of male cousins, and scornful townspeople.
The Sitting Swing shows us how guilt, fear and ignorance are borne by our children.
Two distinct parts of the book look at an abusive child rearing and the process of
recovery that takes place years later. On many levels this is a classic immigrant
story showing us that change, growth, forgiveness, and recovery are possible. It is
also a heart warming healing story and a testament to the strength and courage of
the human spirit.
First chapter:
It was the damndest thing that they thought I’d fall for it. A video camera in plain
site, one corner of my room, pointing right in on everything I’d be doing for the next
twenty eight days. Not likely. I couldn’t figure why they wouldn’t bother hiding the
thing. Even a hanging plant in front might have kept me from noticing for an hour
or two. But they didn’t even try, and that was their real weakness as far as I was
concerned. Here they were, helping some of the most messed-up people you can
imagine, people addicted to just about anything , and they thought these people
would just reveal everything about themselves in an instant? That they would
have cameras watching them get dressed, watching them sleep?
Some experts. I started to wonder why I’d paid good money to be here. But there it is
- we all want to fit in. I had too many friends graduate from this utopian little
institute, and they all swore it changed their lives. They all used “Avalon talk” as I
called it — the catch phrases and jargon used in this Avalon Center. Tiring as it was
to listen to their new language, they were my friends, and it was even more of a
challenge to be outside the group in that way. So, I decided to call some of my own
challenges “addictions” and to make a trip here. Twenty eight days of dealing with
real addicts, then I could graduate and get back on the inside track with my friends.
I pulled a chair out from the small desk in my room and turned it to face the
camera, then sat and reclined myself a bit against its stiff back. I folded my arms
across my chest and looked with a cold grit at the camera. I probably looked the way
my own kids did when they decided to pull the rebel thing. It’s not that I was overly
confrontational, but a camera was a statement, and I would make one right back. I
stared it down, just hoping that someone was watching me live. I wanted my eyes to
tell the story — you might have me stuck here, you might control a lot of what I do,
and I might even tell you a thing or two about myself, but you’re not invading my
privacy. There was a me that I would share; there was a me that I would not.
After a three-minute stare down, I got up from my seat and rummaged through my
suitcase, pulling out a white washcloth. That would do the trick. I walked to the
camera and flipped the cloth up over top the thing, covering its lens. I brushed my
hands against each other in mocking way. Done and done, I thought.
The camera wasn’t the only reason I felt this place was like a prison. For starters,
you weren’t allowed to bring books, magazines, tapes, a radio. No incoming phone
calls either. They pretty much had your input covered. From then on, you’d get
input from them or from your own brain, and that was about it. And that still wasn’
t it for the prison atmosphere. Everything I’d need for those twenty eight days, I had
to bring with me — clothes, toiletries, extra money. Well, they did offer things like
massages, so cash wasn’t a bad idea. But isn’t that a little like pleasantries to keep
shackled people happy? Amazing that I’d heard nothing but good things about the
place from my friends. Most of these points I knew ahead of time, but the camera
had put me on edge. Maybe the big joke among graduates was to get other people to
attend so they’d experience a month of prison too, sort of a hazing ceremony to get
back inside with your friends. Looking around myself, that didn't seem out of the
question.
The place was called “Avalon” with good reason. Well, it wasn’t so glorious as the
island from the Arthurian legends, where magic was supposed to reside and where
Arthur himself was said to be healed of a mortal wound. But the place was on an
island, relatively hidden from the world, connected to the mainland only by a long
and narrow bridge. Maybe half a mile from the center, there was a very small
resort community, resident population five hundred year ’round, and twice that in
the summertime. It wasn’t what you’d call a booming tourist destination, but it had
its visitors. A road circling the island connected the community, the Center, and
substantial woods covering the area.
Those woods and this room seemed the only real havens, now that the camera was
out of the loop, where I would have some time to myself. The rest of Avalon was
made up of common rooms where groups would gather either for recreation or for
talking sessions led by the staff here. Those were the sessions, I’d been told, when
people learned what it meant to open themselves up in front of a bunch of other
addicts. And if scrutiny from other addicts wasn’t bad enough, that’s when the staff
would direct you to confront all your issues. I wasn’t one to avoid issues, but there
are two facts about that. First, you don’t deal with that stuff in front of other people.
On that point I was sure. The last thing someone needs on their path to healing is to
have a bunch of others judging them. Second, I had some disappointments about my
life so far. But I doubted that any of my challenges really counted as issues, not
things that had to be “fixed” by a professional anyway. Pain about some choices I’d
made? Yes. A bit of insecurity about who I was? Yes. I wanted to spend time thinking
about these and setting new goals. Surely new goals would help point to the “real
me,” as my friends now put it. But I just couldn’t see how these could be “fixed” with
therapy. After all, a little pain and a little insecurity didn’t make me broken.
I sighed a deep sigh. Like it or not, I was here now, and I had paid to be here. Twenty
eight days. I had better settle in as best I could, so I started to unpack. As I opened
my few drawers and started setting in my clothes, I thought about the airport
where I’d arrived. At a small bar near the luggage, I had met many of my fellow
“addicts” as we waited for our ride to the Center, and I watched in disbelief as many
of them chugged down drinks. I said a silent prayer of thanks that, if I had to be
surrounded by addicts, at least I wasn’t one for real. I felt sorry for them, but was
grateful not to be among their ranks.
There were kids here in their twenties, and elders in their seventies — people up and
down the scale who had seen something wrong with life as it was and wanted it
fixed. There was something positive about that, and as much as I pitied most of
them, I also had a small sense of hope. As I finished unpacking my clothes, I smiled
with that in mind.
And then I looked up to see a woman staring into my room from the bathroom,
toothbrush held still in her mouth. I sighed again. Forty eight years old and I was
sharing a bathroom with a perfect stranger who seemed interested to spy on me. I
say “spy” because she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at the washcloth over
the camera. I pretended not to notice what she was looking at, and she walked back
to spit out some toothpaste. When I knew she was finished, I went in to introduce
myself. “Irene Watson,” I said, hand out for her to shake.
She took my hand but looked sort of absently past my shoulder. “What’s that rag
doing up there?”
I shrugged. “A little privacy never bothered anyone, don’t you think?”
She blinked, then looked at me maybe for the first time. “Sure.” She wandered back
to her bedroom, and I didn’t learn till later that her name was Gabby, Gabriella in
fact. A native Puerto Rican living now in Connecticut, she went by Gabby, and
later, I decided it was a good name for her.
Yes, things were off to a terrific start. My best course of action was becoming clearer
all the time. Give them some things about me to play with, to feel that they could
fix. Show how happy I was to have my problems resolved, and what a different
person I could be at graduation. That way I wouldn’t be opening up to people like
Gabby, or to people who would put cameras in my room. And along the way, I could
make use of the retreat — open up, perhaps, and spend time in personal reflection.
Then at graduation, maybe I really would be different. They could let me go,
believing that they’d made a difference, and I would leave, knowing that I had made
a difference on my own.
But that’s not how it worked at all.
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Irene Watson
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