Perhaps it was only Dr. Rick who was wise enough to remember my dream at 12 years-old for me, though I suspect Ms. Rhonda saw me yesterday, went to all the websites listed on my flyer and in my signature line, maybe even called the Post to verify that I really did have a column, then began to plot how to get me into the counseling psychology program at LAC-USC Medical Center.

Now I don’t even know for sure if LAC-USC Medical Center has a counseling psychology program, but I know deep in my heart it’s what I want. And I’m convinced Ms. Rhonda and Dr. Rick and everybody at Pacific Hospital of Long Beach’s Behavioral Health Unit—South Campus who loves and cares about me (cause I can feel ya’ll do!) put their heads together to figure out how to push me into just that program.

All that I need to do, people, is call Ms. Leslie LaMarr at Long Beach Mental Health and tell her absolutely, yes, I want to go back to school—Ph.D. and all. At the age of 12 I told myself that I wasn’t smart enough to become a psychiatrist even though I knew in 5th grade my I.Q. was high (family dysfunction forces one to lie to oneself).

Yet PHLB’s Dr. Rick said to me last night, “You’ve got it in you,” and I thought he meant, “You do have it in you to be a columnist for the Post,” but as I have sat and waited for the appointment I knew Ms. Rhonda would not keep the moment they told me she said she’d “be free at six o’clock,” I have thought a bit more and realized Dr. Rick must have read every word of the piece I wrote and that he meant I had the psychiatrist’s and seer’s gift: I could tell what was ailing the soul after one or two conversations. The grievance I filed against him must have sealed the deal and must have made him know for sure.

I came back here because HIP and the Village kept failing me and I didn’t know where else to turn, and Mr. Jhon A., charge nurse, told me at the end of my South Campus stay the first time to come back to the ER and say “suicidal” if I ever got into trouble and couldn’t find my way out.

I was in that kind of trouble and part of my heart won’t rest until I see Mr. Jhon A. again to tell him thank you.

I was kicked out of the Liberty Hotel this past Wednesday and I had nowhere else to go. Why? Because God himself allows no earthly force, human or visiting angel, to derail His plan for one of His children’s lives. When He told me in 2008, as the eminently competent Ms. Phylys Bucci ministered to my then boyfriend/significant other Rev. Joseph William Massey (who terms a 78-year-old a “boyfriend”—really!) through reiki and I sat in silent meditation, humbly lending my I did-not-know-then bountiful spiritual energy to her work, it was God who said, “Daughter, you are to be an intuitive counselor.”

Now this is not a structured plug for my intuitive counseling practice. No, this is further proof of the old Christian joke, “Why pray to someone who does not answer?”

You see, I was desperately trying to help Joseph and I live off of his Social Security and retirement. I wanted so badly for my plans and dreams for my company, Blowing Up Barriers Enterprises, to manifest. Yet I was still avoiding that 12-year-old’s dream, that dream I’d had looking up from either my first Sherlock Holmes or my 900th reading of Anne of Green Gables.

I loved that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle always revealed why a criminal broke the law, and as I read Sherlock I realized I wanted to deeply understand motivations. I also loved Anne and her whole world, especially her parents, Marilla and…Matthew I think it was.

As a child, I was new to and grateful for the Doubleday Book Club from which my sainted mother allowed me to purchase one book per month. I would love to be published by Doubleday to thank them for those once-per-month, beautifully-bound-with-fantastic-dust-jackets-hardback-books. I remember still my favorites: Anne of Green Gables, Great Ghost Stories of the Old West, The Cay by Theodore Taylor and the one with the dark green aqua-ish cover about the unhappy 16-year-old white girl.

I remember those old friends like I remember the World Book Childcraft set with the exciting red and white binding. The only poem today that could turn me from Eliot’s Prufrock or Lucille Clifton’s Bible-inspired series (those on Lucifer, the Virgin Mary, and one other Biblical figure whom I forget), my all-time favorite poems; or that could make me look up from Toni Cade Bambara’s “A Sort of Preface” in Gorilla, My Love or her master work, The Salt Eaters; the only poem if I heard it that could cause me to put down the words of Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Andre Dubus, or John Edgar Wideman is “I must go down to the seas again/to the lonely sea and the sky/and all I ask is a tall ship/and a star to steer her by.”

For now, I shall simply say that I look to Ms. Rhonda and Dr. Rick as the coordinators who worked together with the heavenly Father to embolden me to say, this time, yes, Father/Mother God, yes. I will call Ms. Leslie LaMarr on Monday and I will tell her that yes, I do want to be a student again, but I need stronger support than I have found with the Village or with the Homeless Innovations Project.

I need permanently stable, affordable, and clean housing. That means no roaches, mice, ants or anything that creeps and crawls and does not pay rent. I grew up watching the big black ones scurry when we opened a drawer, no matter what my mother and her LAC-USC Medical Center registered-nursing diploma did.

If that housing has to be LAC-USC graduate student housing, so be it. I was my safest and my happiest in graduate student housing at Temple University. In fact, I met two lifelong friends there who have sent funds during this terrible time of homelessness (Robin Campbell and Dr. Anita Mooijman; they each shall be interviewed in the future for this column).

My first interview, though, shall be Mr. Ralph, medication nurse, PHLB—South Campus, for without him, Dr. Rick, Ms. Rhonda, Charge Nurses Jhon A. and Ms. Laurie, Behavioral Health Workers Mr. Ike and Ms. Sonya, Ms. Margaret, also a medication nurse, medical doctor Dr. So, and Security Officer Ramos (and that is only the top of the list) I would not be thriving and surviving as a columnist for the Post.

The healing I receive each time I come to PHLB—South Campus further grounds and fortifies me. Plus July is Mr. Ralph’s birthday month, so he must be the first interview.

Next stop, Marengo and State Streets, ‘cause I always was a Trojan. Why? Because joy is our birthright, homeless or no. Until again…

Love and blessings,

Dr. Ni

STAY COOL TIP: This may sound like a suggestion from someone intimately familiar with mental health units, but trust me, it works. Go into your closet or drawer and pull out something long, flowing, and, hopefully, made of thin, lightweight material (guys, improvise). Put on the selected item with no accompanying undies, bras, jock straps, et cetera or socks. Get into the shower and let cool water run over you from head to toe. Be sure the garment can be lifted up or pulled aside to let both water and air cascade over the underarms and private parts. Thoroughly soak yourself, including your hair (nappy Black hair holds the cool water beautifully). Emerge from the shower, dripping (hopefully your residence is not carpeted; let-it-air-dry tile floors are great for this), and find a non-leather, non-suede sofa or chaise on which to recline with your mint julep, brought to you by Poitier or Samuel L. Jackson or Denzel or the long-legged former dancer who drove Ms. Daisy in the film version (trivia question!). The wind against your wet clothing will suddenly be cool despite the heat, thus allowing you to turn the air down, if not off completely.  🙂