THE STRANGE WOO-WOO
of
Woman
In Hiding, A True Tale of Backdoor Abuse, Dark Secrets & Other Evil Deeds
By
Kathleen Hoy Foley
Recently Phil and I went to see a psychic medium. In the world of concrete thinking this sounds
like a nutty thing to do, especially when you’re serious about it. It’s right up there with seeking out snake
charmers, sun worshipers, and an assorted array of belly-button contemplators
in search of yourself, The Divine, and the path to wholeness, peace and
happiness, which somehow always includes permanent weight loss for me. The fact that I’ve already pulled off
permanent weight loss somehow totally eludes me. That I’ve achieved wholeness also escapes me when
this quest to obtain what I clearly already have descends on me like a blinding
snowstorm and propels me into the blizzard searching for shadows dancing on
snowdrifts.
What better place to go than the internet to dig up a
psychic capable of divining my path as if I’d lost it, which I hadn’t, but occasionally
my brain falls out of my head and I forget stuff.
It didn’t take long to find Mrs. Psychic who, via a
heartfelt post on her website, promised that I had connected with her not by
coincidence, but had been drawn to her psychically and spiritually because
there was something I needed to learn.
SOLD! Did I bother to consider
that ‘Mrs. Psychic From The Internet’ was not speaking personally and directly
to me but to every Googler landing at her site? No, of course not. I simply anointed her an authority because
she said nice things and I like to hear nice things. Mrs. Psychic made me feel good.
So there I was, arranging a reading at an hourly rate that
should’ve included tickets to a Broadway play, but how could I concern myself
with the material when I was going to interact with The Divine and
everybody knows that interacting with The Divine is priceless?
Never did I question the possibility that Mrs. Psychic who
knew nothing about me other than what she would be able to glean from the air, would
not be able to glean bupkis from the air.
Unless you count what I was blabbing on about from across the great
divide of her massive desk with the NO HUGS sign glaring up at me from beneath
the plate glass protecting its mahogany top, lest I should fall into a hypnotic
trance and inadvertently try to pull her into a sweaty embrace.
Never mind about ‘no hugs’ warnings. I’d already stuffed the air with comments
about our indie press, breaking the cardinal rule for visiting a psychic:
DO NOT BE A BLABBERMOUTH. Still I waited
in great anticipation for Mrs. Psychic to unleash the storm of her paranormal gifts. I waited for colossal woo-woo—a powwow with a
consortium of master spirit guides; clairvoyant direction; paranormal
confirmation of my karmic path; not to mention, a coherent, encouraging
shout-out from a passed relative who’s since gained serious spirit status in
the great beyond…Greetings Kathleen, you’re doing a fine job.
After that I wanted Phil and I to go out to lunch and
celebrate all that wacky woo-woo, because that’s what connecting with spirits
is: wacky and woo-woo…
Okay. Admission
time. I know wacky and woo-woo…intimately. As Phil says, why is it that the only
relatives that talk to you are the dead ones? Ahhh...because they want to
tell their stories is my only answer.
And I just happen to be a story teller.
Certainly Mrs. Psychic would intuit this.
Half an hour into the session I would’ve settled for being alerted
that an evil spell had been cast upon my sorry self and I needed to grind up chicken
bones and toss the dust over my left shoulder at midnight
under the shine of a full moon.
Fifty seven minutes into the longest hour ever recorded, I
was practically begging for any shred of woo-woo. How about a prediction for tomorrow’s weather? July in New Jersey
There was no woo-woo.
Instead we got a dry, long-winded business plan that could’ve been typed
up by a robot in a cubicle and delivered “To Occupant” by means of third class
mail. But there’s a good side to this
saga. There would be none of that
emotional overload that accompanies woo-woo.
Whew. I would escape this reading-turned-lecture
without any mention of the dastardly abuses of the Woman In Hiding variety.
Two minutes to go.
I’m reaching for my handbag watching the clock on the wall slog away the
last seconds. One minute and I’m out of
here.
“There’s something about births that’s not making sense,” Mrs.
Psychic utters.
Is she kidding? She
brings this up now; just as I’m about to execute my getaway?
And so it is that the rush of tears that live always in the
truth of Woman In Hiding surface instantly as I tell my story. When Mrs. Psychic divulges that she too is a
rape victim, the NO HUGS warning suddenly seems more like a heartbreaking
symptom.
As for the strange woo-woo.
Mrs. Psychic reveals that her very close friend is also a ‘woman in
hiding’. Her life devastated by being
impregnated by rape. By being hunted
down and stalked by the predator adoptee when ‘no contact’ fell on deaf,
arrogant ears.
And there was Woman In Hiding, A True Tale of Backdoor
Abuse, Dark Secrets & Other Evil Deeds reaching out its numinous hand in
its unforeseen and inexplicable way to two women victimized by sexual violence.
Woo. Woo. Woo.
