The Cost of the Quiet

A Hot Pants, Motorcycles And K Street excerpt

I got a wonderful early birthday gift last Saturday when co-host, Jack Slattery, of The Possible Society In Motion Radio Show, joined me on my Anastasia The Storyteller Radio Show.

I’d been aiming at the show theme, The Cost Of  The Quiet, for months. But I just could not get it to come together, could not quite find the right tone. So I kept putting it off and putting it off again.

But the theme is so pivotal to my Hot Pants, Motorcycles And K Street story that I could not, indefinitely, keep skirting the edges. So central to what coming to JFK’s Camelot meant for me and what happened thereafter (i.e. my life on the fast track of Washington society and politics). So much of who and what I have become.

Secrets! It all began with secrets, or at least that is what stands out most for me at this telling; family secrets and scandals, child abuse, power and money control games, conspiracies of silence, and collusions.  Secrets I lived with and through, however, that led me to know and understand the dark side of our national politics and society so thoroughly that I became an adept at transforming these to the Light, a gift of the hardships for which I am most grateful.

No wonder Watergate grabbed and held my attention these long, past four decades. So much of what went on in that state of affairs replicated the family system within which I grew up.  Years later, in fact, I came to realize how much Richard Nixon was a stand-in for my mother. Nixon provided me with a projected playing field that I would, for years, use as a template for working out what had been wounded and damaged in me growing up.

Then, too, Watergate added to the losses, by assassination of JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, which also loaded up an entire generation with grief. Those of us who came of age in the ‘60s and 70s would never forget this era.

It is only now, four decades later, that “secrets” I’ve held close for these many years are ready to face the light of a new day.  Actually these are not really hidden parts of me and my history as much as they are mementos of what has been a rather richly rewarding life’s journey with, perhaps, more of the challenges from the Dark Side than I would have liked.

Held so close to me, however, they have taken their toll as unhealed grief is wont to do.

The worst of the trials and tribulations has, truly, been the result of my own, more or less innocent holding back of facts, as I have known them, and feelings.  Thank goodness today is a new day. With the encouragement and support of friends and associates such as Jack, I am on my way out of the closet.  Not a LGTB one, by any means, yet a coming out certain to make a few waves.

Destiny would have it, however, that Anastasia, meaning “She Who Rises Again,” would eventually find her voice. And, like so many others learn to avail themselves of our First Amendment rights.

Ah, the truth will set you free.

Hear The Podcast 

Where I Take My Next Steps To Freedom!

On the

Anastasia The Storyteller Radio Show

The Cost Of The Quiet

Described as follows.

Anastasia welcomes her Possible Society In Motion co-host, Jack Slattery, to this program. Jack has become adept in teaming with Anastasia in an on-air format. In this episode he draws Anastasia out for the teachable lessons from one of her personal “crash and burn stories.”  The story related is excerpted from Anastasia's new book in progress, Hot Pants, Motorcycles and K Street: In The Era Before Watergate.

Anastasia links this tale of her's to the recent tragic death by suicide of L. Wren Scott, partner to Mick Jagger, for a poignant discussion on how the self-determined pressures of achievement and success in the American culture can, potentially, lead to such outcomes.

The on-air portion of the show continues with a conference call forum discussion. 

More Hot Pants, Motorcycles And K Street stories on the way.